Microscopes are used to visually analyze the structural results of semiconductor processing. Fine features of semiconductor devices, such as transistor gates having sub-micron dimensions, are not readily visible to the human eye. Therefore, high performance microscopes, including scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) and scanning tunneling microscopes (STMs), are used to make these features visible. Semiconductor process engineers can, therefore, view these features to more efficiently diagnose problems that exist in semiconductor processes.
Conventionally, the images produced by microscopes are present only on monitors located with the microscopes. See Lampso, B. W. and Redell, D. D. (1980), Experience with Processes and Monitors on Mesa, Communications of the AACM, Vol. 23, No. 2:105-117. Often, the microscopes are located in the clean room complex of a wafer fabrication facility in which semiconductor processing is performed. Thus, wafers can be inspected in the midst of semiconductor processing without their removal from the clean room complex. As a result, the wafers are less likely to be contaminated by undesired particles that exist in far greater quantity outside the clean room complex. However, because the microscopes are located within the clean room complex, process engineers must necessarily don clean room uniforms, or bunny suits, and enter the clean room complex to view the inspected wafers. This technique is particularly inefficient when the process engineers, who are not normally stationed in the clean room complex, are required to enter the clean room complex to view microscopy results.